Passion

supposed to do your costuming in the middle of this mob?”

“Sure, Bill, I’ll work on that.” Luce edged back just as the boys playing tag zipped by again. “Where are we?”

“You’ve circled the globe to find yourself in the Globe, milady.” Bill sketched a little bow.

“The Globe Theatre?” Luce ducked as the woman in front of her discarded a gnawed-on turkey leg by tossing it over her shoulder. “You mean, like, Shakespeare?”

“Well, he claims to be retired. You know those artist types. So moody.” Bill swooped down near the ground, tugging at the hem of her dress and humming to himself.

“Othello happened here,” Luce said, taking a moment to let it all sink in. “The Tempest. Romeo and Juliet. We’re practically standing in the center of all the greatest love stories ever written.”

“Actually, you’re standing in walnut shells.”

“Why do you have to be so glib about everything? This is amazing!”

“Sorry, I didn’t realize we’d need a moment of bardolatry.” His words came out lisped because of the needle clipped between his jagged teeth. “Now stand still.”

“Ouch!” Luce yelped as he jabbed sharply into her kneecap. “What are you doing?”

“Un-Anachronizing you. These folks’ll pay good money for a freak show, but they’re expecting it to stay onstage.” Bill worked quickly, discreetly tucking the long, draped fabric of her black gown from Versailles into a series of folds and crimps so that it was gathered along the sides. He knocked away her black wig and pulled her hair into a frizzy pouf. Then he eyed the velvet capelet around her shoulders. He whipped off the soft fabric. At last, he hocked a giant loogie into one hand, rubbed his palms together, and welded the capelet into a high Jacobean collar.

“That is seriously disgusting, Bill.”

“Be quiet,” he snapped. “Next time give me more space to work. You think I like ‘making do’? I don’t.” He jerked his head at the jeering throngs. “Luckily most of them are too drunk to notice the girl stepping out of the shadows at the back of the room.”

Bill was right: No one was looking at them. Everyone was squabbling as they pressed closer to the stage. It was just a platform, raised about five feet off the ground, and, standing at the back of the rowdy crowd, Luce had trouble seeing it clearly.

“Come on, now!” a boy shouted from the back. “Don’t make us wait all day!”

Above the crowd were three tiers of box seats, and then nothing: the O-shaped amphitheater opened on a midday sky the pale blue of a robin’s egg. Luce looked around for her past self. For Daniel.

“We’re at the opening of the Globe.” She thought back to Daniel’s words under the peach trees at Sword & Cross. “Daniel told me we were here.”

“Sure, you were here,” Bill said. “About fourteen years ago. Perched on your older brother’s shoulder. You came with your family to see Julius Caesar.”

Bill hovered in the air a foot in front of her. It was unappetizing, but the high collar around her neck actually seemed to hold its shape. She almost resembled the sumptuously dressed women in the higher boxes.

“And Daniel?” she asked.

“Daniel was a player—”

“Hey!”

“That’s what they call the actors.” Bill rolled his eyes. “He was just starting out then. To everyone else in the audience, his debut was utterly forgettable. But to little three-year-old Lucinda”—Bill shrugged—“it put the fire in you. You’ve been quote-unquote dying to get onstage ever since. Tonight’s your night.”

“I’m an actor?”

No. Her friend Callie was the actor, not her. During Luce’s last semester at the Dover School, Callie had begged Luce to try out with her for Our Town. The two of them had rehearsed for weeks before the audition. Luce got one line, but Callie had brought the house down with her portrayal of Emily Webb. Luce had watched from the wings, proud of and awed by her friend. Callie would have sold off her life’s possessions to stand in the old Globe Theatre for one minute, let alone to get up on the stage.

But then Luce remembered Callie’s blood-drained face when she’d seen the angels battle the Outcasts. What had happened to Callie after Luce had left? Where were the Outcasts now? How would Luce ever explain to Callie, or her parents, what had happened—if, that is, Luce ever returned to her backyard and that life?

Because Luce knew now that she wouldn’t go back to that life until she’d figured out how to stop it from ending. Until she’d unraveled this curse that forced her and Daniel to live out the same star-crossed lovers’ tale again and again.

She must be here in this theater for a reason. Her soul had drawn her here; why?

She pushed through the crowd, moving along the side of the amphitheater until she could see the stage. The wooden planks had been covered with a thick, hemplike matting made to look like rough grass. Two full-sized cannons stood like guards near either wing, and a row of potted orange trees lined the back wall. Not far from Luce, a rickety wooden ladder led to a curtained space: the tiring-room—she remembered from the acting class she’d taken with Callie—where the actors got into their costumes and prepared for their scenes.

“Wait!” Bill called as she hurried up the ladder.

Behind the curtain, the room was small and cramped and dimly lit. Luce passed stacks of manuscripts and open wardrobes full of costumes, ogling a massive lion’s-head mask and rows of hanging gold and velvet cloaks. Then she froze: Several actors were standing around in various stages of undress—boys with half-buttoned gowns, men lacing up brown leather boots. Thankfully, the actors were busily powdering their faces and frantically rehearsing lines, so that the room was filled with short shouted-out fragments of the play.

Before any of the actors could look up and see her, Bill flew to Luce’s side and pushed her into one of the wardrobes. Clothes closed around her.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Let me remind you that you’re an actor in a time when there are no actresses.” Bill frowned. “You don’t belong back here as a woman. Not that that stopped you. Your past self took some pretty grand risks to get herself a role in All Is True.”

“All Is True?” Luce repeated. She’d been hoping she would at least recognize the title. No such luck. She peeked out of the wardrobe into the room.

“You know it as Henry the Eighth,” Bill said, yanking her back by the collar. “But pay attention: Would you like to venture a guess as to why your past self would lie and disguise herself to land a role—”

“Daniel.”

He’d just come into the tiring-room. The door to the yard outside was still open behind him; the sun was at his back. Daniel walked alone, reading a handwritten script, hardly noticing the other players around him. He looked different than he had in any of her other lives. His blond hair was long and a bit wavy, gathered with a black band at the nape of his neck. He had a beard, neatly trimmed, just a bit darker in color than the hair on his head.

Luce felt an urge to touch it. To caress his face and run her fingers through his hair and trace the back of his neck and touch every part of him. His white shirt gaped open, showing the clean line of muscles on his chest. His black pants were baggy, gathered into knee-high black boots.

As he drew nearer, her heart began to pound. The roar of the crowd in the pit fell away. The stink of dried sweat from the costumes in the wardrobe disappeared. There was just the sound of her breathing and his footsteps moving toward her. She stepped out of the wardrobe.

At the sight of her, Daniel’s thunderstorm-gray eyes glowed violet. He smiled in surprise.

She couldn’t hold it in any longer. She rushed toward him, forgetting Bill, forgetting the actors, forgetting the past self, who could be anywhere, steps away, the girl this Daniel really belonged to. She forgot everything but her need to be held by him.

He slid his arms easily around her waist, guiding her quickly to the other side of the bulky wardrobe, where they were hidden from the other actors. Her hands found the back of his neck. A warm rush rippled through her. She closed her eyes and felt his lips come down on hers, featherlight—almost too light. She waited to feel the hunger in his kiss. She waited. And waited.